


almost

by swingingparty



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie) Spoilers, This Is Sad, author really misses tony stark!!!!! agh!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 05:39:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19784374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swingingparty/pseuds/swingingparty
Summary: Peter’s really just been moving down the list. Recounting the events of Europe to one person after the next, carefully defecting their worry and concern like he’s been doing it for his whole life. Which is almost true - maybe not his whole life, but he’s certainly had a lot of practice since the spider bite.But, yeah. Just moving down the list.Now it’s Tony’s turn.—CONTAINS FFH SPOILERS





	almost

“You’re never going to guess what happened, Mr. Stark.”

To his credit, Peter says it almost conversationally. He’s been practicing that a lot—the whole keeping his voice light and airy, puncturing his explanations with just the right amount of jokes to keep the listening party laughing just a little too much to fully comprehend what he’s saying. He’s done it with May who, to _her_ credit, only bought it for, like, six minutes. He’s done it with Ned who seemed more convinced that everything was as fine as he was insisting—though Ned’s always been good at seeing through his bullshit, even if he doesn’t necessarily call Peter on it, so maybe not. He _tried_ it on MJ, who gave him an almost-offended glare before pulling him into a backbreaking hug—something that his still-healing ribs _screamed_ in protest at, but, hey, it was MJ and she was hugging him, so he kept his mouth shut.

He’s really just been moving down the list. Recounting the events of Europe to one person after the next, carefully defecting their worry and concern like he’s been doing it for his whole life. Which is almost true—maybe not his whole life, but he’s certainly had a lot of practice since the spider bite. 

_(Which can’t be a good thing, really, but if he doesn’t think about it then everything’s fine and he doesn’t get that weird, achy feeling in his chest and there’s absolutely no cause for concern.)_

But, yeah. Just moving down the list. 

Now it’s Tony’s turn.

He, admittedly, hasn’t been looking forward to this one for an exhausting number of reasons. He can already hear the man’s angry interjections, feel his concerned stares boring holes right through him—because if anyone’s good at seeing through his _I’m-fine-everything’s-fine_ bullshit, it’s Tony—and he really, really doesn’t want to be the subject of Mr. Stark’s concern today. He’s already done that, like, six billion times in the last. The man deserves a break, for once.

But he’d most definitely find a way to kill Peter if he kept this from him, so he has to run through the explanation once more. 

It’s better if he keeps it short, he’s decided. No one needs to know the specific details, like what he saw in Beck’s vision or what the man said to him before the train came out of nowhere and almost napped his body in half or the feeling like his chest is caving in whenever he thinks about the whole mess.

That’s all—water under the bridge, or something. Whatever the expression is, it’s not important. It’s not Tony’s business to worry about.

_(He deserves a break, he deserves a break, why can’t Peter just give him a fucking break?)_

So he prepares himself. Does the whole breathing routine May worked on with him: in for five, out for eight. Focuses on all the things he can hear and feel and see in the right controlled way that keeps him grounded but doesn’t send his senses into overdrive.

_(He’s getting scarily good at grounding himself, scarily good at pulling himself back from the metaphorical abyss he seems to spend so much time by nowadays and maybe he should be concerned about that, too.)_

It’ll be hard. It’s always hard.

 _(It’s been so hard for months and months and months and he just wants it all to stop, he just wants it all to go back to how it was.)_

But he’ll do it. Because Tony would want him to.

And he owes the man that much. That much and infinite amounts of more.

“It’s a doozy,” he says, carefully folding his hands in his lap. They’ve started shaking a lot more recently, and he knows that’s the exact kind of thing that will send Mr. Stark, into a grade-A worrying fit if he catches on. “There was—well, there were these things—elementals. Supposedly from a multiverse - like, whole death and destruction thing aside, how cool would it have been for there to be a _multiverse?_ \- and they, like, apparently destroyed this guy called Quentin Beck's Earth, but plot twist: he was faking it all! Using illusion tech and drones, or whatever. Me—me and a friend figured it out—MJ, actually. The one who yelled at you for being a capitalist that one time.”

_That’s a joke. That’s where you’re supposed to laugh, Mr. Stark._

But he’s met with silence. Silence and the faint sound of the breeze blowing through the grass of the field they’re in, because sometimes these things are just easier outside. More space, more air to breathe—should he get to the point where it feels like there isn’t enough, which happens more often that he’d like to admit. 

But it’s a nice day out—really, it is. Springtime is always great up by the lake house—the expanse of trees and forests and fields make for a spectacular growing season, or so everyone who lives there says—and if he can just get through this, just get through this one last explanation, everything will be okay.

So he brushes last the silence—after all, he knew this wasn’t going go perfectly, right?—and carries on talking, staring up at the clouds now. 

“Yeah,” he says firmly, gaze pointing upwards because sometimes things are easier when you don’t look at the, too. “You remember that. You thought it was hilarious—she did too, kind of. She only pretends to hate you, you know. She’s weird like that - but, like, good weird. You know? But, yeah, anyways. Crazy stuff. There was this whole mess with me getting hit by a train—hey, it’s okay, I survived—and then this big fight in London and I won but I was, like, super hurt and couldn’t walk and everyone was freaking out for so long but it’s, okay. I messed up a lot. But it ended up okay?”

 _What did you do, Peter?_ He can hear the unspoken question—they don’t always need words to communicate. It’s not an angry one—it never is, really—more of gently concerned. Worried. 

“Gave Beck EDITH,” he says, after a pause. Honesty is the best policy and there’s something about the tapestry of clouds above him that makes the words come a little easier. Like it’s just him there. Like he’s talking to himself. “That was - bad. Really bad. I—I don’t know, I freaked out. Thought I wasn’t worth it, thought I didn’t deserve it. He—he killed a lot of people with it, I think. The damage was pretty heavy in London. I—my fault, you know? Freaked out, made a dumb choice, caused a whole other mess.”

More silence. It feels like it’s pressing down on his windpipe, threatening to cut his voice off. He coughs it away—tries to, at least. The tightness just gets worse.

_Keep it together._

But the silence persists, stretching on into infinity and no amount of cloud gazing will change the fact that he’s not going to get a response.

That he’s never going to get a response.

Silence will reign eternal because it only feels like he’s talking to himself because he _is_ talking to himself.

“This is,” he says and his voice bypasses tight and goes straight to watery and shaky and sounding like it’s coming from very far away. “This is the part where you, you know, yell at me, right? Tell me you’re—you’re worried a-and I’m gonna give you a stress ulcer, right? You—this is your part, Mr. Stark, you gotta talk now, please—"

 _Please. Please come back. Please tell me it’s okay and I messed up but it’s_ okay _because you’re here and you’re going to make everything right like you always do._

_Please._

But his silent pleas fall on deaf ears. The universe stopped listening a long time ago. Stopped the second Tony got the stones and looked the Mad Titan in the eyes and snapped his life away.

Peter’s pretty sure the universe just stopped in general then.

He’s not crying—not yet, at least—but he can feel the sobs crawling up his throat, tearing their way through his hollow chest like wild animals, threatening to rip their way out of him more and more with every second that passes by.

Because Tony is not going to yell at him. Tony is never going to yell at him again, never give him that half-stern, half-affectionate glare he always gave whenever Peter put himself in danger. He’s never going to make another joke about how Peter’s aged him _at least fifteen years, kid, I mean—_ look _at me,_ never going to complain about the stress ulcers Peter’s making him develop, never look him in the eyes and say, with a vulnerability that shocked him each time it reared its head, _you know I only fuss because I care right?_

Tony is not going to do any of that ever again. Because he is dead.

Tony is dead and Peter’s sitting cross legged in a field talking to a slab of rock like it will change anything. 

He’s talking to a _headstone._ A headstone and things could almost pass as normal—he and Tony have walked this field before, shared their secrets among the tall grass and the just-blooming flowers when they couldn’t find a quiet spot inside or when it was just too beautiful of a day to resist, like it is now—except they won’t because there’s heavy, shattering silences where Tony’s jokes and protests and glares should go and he’s sitting in a field all alone with grass tickling his knees talking to a headstone.

A headstone.

They give those to dead people, which still feels a surreal connection to make because Tony can’t be dead, right? The universe cannot be that cruel. The man spent years and years and years fighting to save it, after all, how can it be so fucking _cruel_ as to kill him? After all that, how does that still happen? 

It does. He will never come close to understanding it, but it does. It _did._

Peter extends a hand—it’s shaking, they’re always shaking nowadays—out towards the rock, towards the _headstone._ His fingers tremble with the weight of the tidal wave of grief he’s sitting on, the searing pain that starts from his chest and explodes outwards each time he look at the rock and sees the name carved into it and remembers that Tony Stark died; remembers that he died and he is still dead and he will always be dead now and the only things Peter has left of him are memories that make him feel like his chest is being cracked open like a fucking walnut whenever they cross his mind.

His fingers graze the rock.

_(You’re such a good kid, you know that, right?)_

Rest firmly on it.

_(I’d stop the world on its axis for you.)_

Press into it so that the bumps and jagged edges dig into his fingertips, the pain barely registering in his closed brain.

_(I’m so proud of you. And I always will be.)_

Palm rests flat across the surface, across the name, across the reminder that the universe is broken and shattered and empty and things will never, ever be okay again.

_(I can’t wait to see what you’re gonna do in the future. It’s going to be amazing.)_

But he won’t. He’s never going to see Peter’s future because he is dead, Tony is dead, Tony is _fucking dead._

“It should’ve been me,” he says. His voice is splintering open, throat closing up in an attempt to keep the sobs in his chest where they belong. “Tony, it—it should’ve been _me.”_

_I should’ve saved you. I should’ve done more. I should’ve been better._

But the world doesn’t work like that—the _universe_ doesn’t work like that. Peter can never save the people who matter the most. They all die in blurred hazes tearing metal and clouds of smoke and fire as the planes drop from the sky and back alleys and puddles of rain mixed with blood and rock and dust and foreign planets and stupid, stupid fucking one-liners that are seared into his memory like a brand, dancing around, mocking him.

(You can’t save everyone, Pete _, they seem to say in a voice that sounds like Tony’s and it makes him want to tear his fucking lungs out.)_

Because he was never asking to save everyone. He isn’t now, with his hand pressed against Tony’s headstone and a black hole opening in his chest that, honestly, at this point, he’s totally fine with it swallowing him up into nothingness. He wasn’t then, with blood and sweat dripping into his eyes and Rhodey’s and Pepper’s hands pulling him back and the age-old mantra of _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry_ circling around his head until the Titan faded away and that was all he could hear for hours and hours. He wasn’t asking for that at the funeral, he wasn’t asking for that in the days and months that followed, he wasn’t asking for that in Beck’s vision or London or at _any_ other point in time.

He was just asking to save Tony.

He was just asking to save him long enough to get the future the man had always promised they would have together.

_(I know you think you’re a curse, Pete. I know you think you’re gonna inevitably kill everyone around you just by existing, or something, but that’s not true. I’m here. I’m always gonna be here. Nothing's gonna take me away from you; I won’t let it.)_

What a fucking lie that had been.

And all Peter wanted—still wants—was to believe it.

He almost had. 

Almost.

“This wasn't supposed to happen,” he hisses—or yells, maybe; he’s not sure, really—to whoever is listening. “You—you weren’t supposed to— _this wasn’t supposed to h-happen.”_

To himself, to the stupid fucking universe, to Tony.

_(Except not to Tony, because he’s dead and dead people can’t listen—so what’s the fucking point, anymore, really?)_

But he keeps talking because maybe if he says enough words the hole in his chest will fill and he’ll be able to walk away from this place and not sink through the earth and stay there until he suffocates like he’s feeling might happen.

Maybe if he keeps talking it'll all be okay.

_(It won't. It never will.)_

“What about Pepper?” Peter says—forces out, really—around a shuddering breath. “And Rhodey? What about Morgan—she—she _n-needs_ you, Mr. Sstark, she _needs_ her dad and you’re not— _h_ _ere_ and she _needs_ you and—and—”

His vision blurs, the hard outline of the rock in front of him - his hand is still gripping like it’s some sort of lifeline—skewing sideways and the hole is turning more into a cavern and all he can think about it the fact that Pepper doesn’t have her husband anymore and Rhodey doesn’t have his best friend anymore and Morgan doesn’t have her father anymore and none of this—not one single stupid part of this _mess_ they’re in now—is fair.

“They all need you,” he whispers. His hand drops to the grind, rests limply in the flowers and grass surrounding the headstone.

 _I need you,_ is the unspoken line. _Please. I still need you._

Because it’s been months and the nightmares never stop and he still catches Pepper crying in the kitchen when she thinks he and Morgan are occupied and Rhodey never smiles anymore and Peter can barely get through a day without the black hole opening and sucking him right back into Titan so he can hear Tony’s heartbeat fade out of existence for the millionth time and feel the same, agonizing pain in his chest as he hears Tony die over and over again. 

All he wants are the concerned looks. The arguing, the worry, the disbelieving snorts, the pointed _what on earth were you fucking thinking, Peter?_

The movie nights with them pelting popcorn at each other and Peter rolling his eyes at Tony’s refusal to watch anything but bad comedies from the 80s and Tony rolling _his_ eyes at Peter’s ability to watch the Star Wars movies an endless amount of times. The days spent in comfortable silence, Peter doing his homework and Tony trawling through business reports. Lab day with Tony bullying DUM-E and Peter telling him to _stop being so mean to his children._ Story swapping. Life lessons. Back and forth conversations that came so easy, easier than anything else in Peter's life.

All he wants is Tony.

He had almost had it. Almost had the perfect life with the perfect mentor. Almost had him back after five years of silence and blackness and the feeling that he was missing something very important.

But he was too slow and Tony was too fast, too ready to throw himself down to save the universe.

_(Maybe if you were good enough, Tony would still be alive.)_

Almost. Almost, almost, almost.

_(Beck was a liar at heart, but he told the truth with that one, right?)_

He had almost had it. 

But now everything’s gone. Shattered, scattered somewhere among the grass and the wind and the setting sun and the black holes and the half-dead flowers no one can bear to come up and replace often enough because no one— _no one—_ can bear to realize that Tony is gone, Tony is fucking gone.

Because they almost had it. They almost had won. Peter almost had Tony.

But since when has almost ever been enough?

**Author's Note:**

> yes the rumors are true i am currently in stage five out of the seven stages of grief for anthony edward stark...what abt it...
> 
> SRY THIS is so sad omg :-( ....sometimes u just gotta vent and i miss tony SO MUCH marvel please bring him back please please i miss him


End file.
